


a little more fair

by ifthebookdoesntsell



Series: and then maybe you'll remember me when i'm gone (that's all i could ever want) [3]
Category: Mean Girls - Richmond/Benjamin/Fey
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Fetchen, Karen Smith Character Study, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, The Plastics, canonverse, filling in the blanks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26882062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifthebookdoesntsell/pseuds/ifthebookdoesntsell
Summary: Regina has haters, blatant faults, and because of this, we had to strive to give her redemption, to allow her to reach absolution.Karen doesn't need to be redeemed, and she doesn’t need to be absolved; she just needs to be understood, and in order to be understood, she needs to have a life beyond the pages we are given.Let’s fill in the blanks. Allow us to provide her with reasons, to show that she is not a stereotype.Let us give her a story. Actually, tragedy may be a better description.Tragedy is the only explanation. It is difficult to believe that Karen Smith, the most emotionally intelligent of her kind, was borndumb.(Or, a study of Karen Smith, why she became what she was in the story, and what she could be.)
Relationships: Karen Smith/Gretchen Wieners, Regina George & Karen Smith & Gretchen Wieners, The Plastics (Friendship)
Series: and then maybe you'll remember me when i'm gone (that's all i could ever want) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1823953
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	a little more fair

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all. finally at ya with an update to this series. here's my take on karen; i decided to give her a bit more of a story. i hope y'all enjoy <3 
> 
> as always, be safe.

Regina has haters, blatant faults, and because of this, we had to strive to give her redemption, to allow her to reach absolution. 

Karen doesn't need to be redeemed, and she doesn’t need to be absolved; she just needs to be understood, and in order to be understood, she needs to have a life beyond the pages we are given. 

Let’s fill in the blanks. Allow us to provide her with reasons, to show that she is not a stereotype. 

Let us give her a story. Actually, tragedy may be a better description. 

Tragedy is the only explanation. It is difficult to believe that Karen Smith, the most emotionally intelligent of her kind, was born _dumb_.

***

The summer before eighth grade, a nameless semi-truck driver falls asleep at the wheel, his head falls against the horn too late, and Karen Smith’s mother, who is on her way back from a business trip, is killed. 

The whole year, Karen is acutely aware of the chatter, the way people look away when she enters a room. Her classmates pat her on the shoulder, trying to be reassuring, like they somehow know more than she does herself. They tell her that there was nothing that could have been done. 

“A random, unlucky accident,” many of them say sympathetically. 

Everybody had heard the second it happened. Karen knows that. Her mother was beloved by their town, always handing out sweets to the new residents, helping with the clothing drives, the book drives, really anything. She was PTA president. She was strong, and she loved fiercely. Karen knew that her mom had not wanted to go, and she would often wake in the middle of the night, her face buried in the pillow and tears streaming down her face. 

Her mother had fought to live at the hospital. Her heart stopped three times, but it was only restarted twice. Karen’s father told her that the two restarts were one for each of them: her mother’s two best reasons to live. 

It’s really too bad that sometimes death creeps up faster than you can ever know. It’s really too bad that we must give Karen reasons for shutting down when, in another life, it’s possible that Karen Smith could have been just like Regina George. 

This could have been a story of redemption. Instead, it is a story of what happens when you are too young and death is too fast and everything hurts. 

Is it not better to shut down? To stop? To not wonder _what if?_

Karen climbs into bed every night that year, huddling close to her trusty stuffed animals, staring at her ceiling that’s painted the color of the sky. She thinks about how her mother was fair and loyal, just like the color she chose for her daughter's bedroom. 

She wouldn’t have bled blue, but my God, Delilah Smith lived by those values. And she had died with those words coursing through her veins, too. Her whole life was dedicated to her husband and her daughter, and, to the very end, her thoughts were of them. 

Young Karen spends the whole year thinking about the loss, about how her mother was the fairest woman she had ever met, and until that night when her father woke her, she had believed Delilah when she said that life would be good to her. 

Fair. 

On her good days, she cries, mourning her mother and her innocence, kleenex stuffed in all of the pockets big enough to fit any, and on her bad ones, she laughs and laughs. At God. At herself. At the absolute shitshow her life has become because of one tired truck driver. 

She knows it’s all very strange to giggle, to put on a face that makes it look like tragedy hadn’t struck. But her mom died. Nobody can be mean to her. Nobody can criticize her for her choices. 

***

At the funeral, they call her mother courageous, and Karen musters all of her strength not to let out a broken cackle. 

“Why are you using that word?” Karen wants to ask, to demand, to yell. “My mother didn’t know she was going to die. She didn’t drive down the highway and _decide_ to sacrifice herself. Call her good. Call her honest. Call her beautiful. But understand that not all heroes have to be brave.”

***

Karen is thirteen when her mother dies. She was twelve when her mother was promoted and started to take more trips. She had baked her mom a cake with her dad, helped make dinner for her birthday. Her mother was her favorite person: kind and loving, a woman who paid it forward at every chance that she got, loved her husband and taught her young daughter how to make the perfect scrambled eggs and plant the best strawberries in their backyard. 

Karen resolves that she will never be that sweet, that good. But she does try to memorize her mother’s voice, the way she walked, the way she could turn any frown into a smile. She tries to match every single thing. 

Her father tells stories about her mother, about her fairness, about her dorkiness, about her laugh. He talks wistfully of the time of their youth, the way his wife would hold him, make him smile when he was hurting. 

Karen nods along. She will never be like her, but, nevertheless, she likes to hear the stories. 

***

In the ninth grade, Karen follows Regina George blindly, keenly aware that this year will be the time to reinvent herself, to make everyone stop feeling sorry for her. She joins up with Bridget and knows that it’s the exact opposite of being good, of being fair. It’s the exact opposite of the courageous person the eulogist had made her mother out to be.

The thing is, kindness had killed her mother. She didn’t have to go on the trip, but her coworker asked her to since it was his daughter’s birthday. If her mother hadn’t been so good, so wonderful, she would still be alive. 

Karen knows it’s unfair to blame her mother, or the nameless coworker, and on her better days she doesn’t. 

At the lunch table, Regina asks questions, and Karen listens intently, trying to take in every word. 

“I can make you strong,” Bridget says, her smirk poisonous. 

Regina and Karen look between each other, two broken girls, and they agree. 

The world isn’t fair, and Karen may as well get ahead how she can. 

_Life is fair, my beautiful girl,_ she hears her mother’s voice, and she shakes it off. 

Nothing is fair. It should be. But it isn’t. 

Nobody is looking out for her. She’ll have to look out for herself. 

***

Karen’s grades begin to drop. 

Something about learning about white-washed worlds and rationality makes her sick. The world isn’t perfect or honest. She knows that better than anybody. Besides, it’s easier to be dumb. When you’re dumb, nobody asks you questions; nobody worries about you. Being smart makes you think too much about what could have been, Karen finds. 

Karen replaces her normal straight As with makeup and dresses, and when she walks in one day in heels, nobody says a damn thing. The boys and girls all stare, and, for the first time since that fateful summer, Karen feels like they’re really seeing. 

Though, she isn’t sure what.

It’s silly, really. All along, she’s been waiting for them to see, to see past the tragedy and the grief, and now that they are, she’s not sure they’re really seeing _her_ the way she wanted. 

(Later, Karen will scoff to herself. She succumbed to her own rule of twos.)

***

The only one who’s really there for her is Gretchen. 

She joins up with Regina and Karen not long after, and Karen feels as though the girl is the missing piece. 

Gretchen knows everything Karen doesn’t, and they make the perfect pair to complete their ascension to the top of the food chain. They’re aware that within that hierarchy they’re below Regina, but they don’t care. 

Or, at least Karen doesn’t, especially when Regina snaps at them, and Gretchen slips a hand into hers. The brunette will squeeze tight, lean into her, and Karen realizes it's the warmest she’s felt since the eighth grade. 

Gretchen will kiss somebody else, and Karen will pretend she isn’t jealous, pretend that the reason she’s told her best friend that she’s had sex with eleven people when she hasn’t isn’t because she hopes that she can make the girl jealous too. 

Gretchen will tell her she loves her, ask her to say it back, and Karen will, all the while reminding herself that they’re just friends. 

***

Karen doesn’t expect for junior year to go the way it does. Sure, as the years have gone by, she and Gretchen have grown increasingly more fearful of Regina’s blow ups-- though they know deep down that it’s more to do with the girl’s parents than anything else-- but they still love her. 

For a moment, with Regina away, Karen feels free. But soon, she just feels guilty again. 

_Life isn’t fair,_ she reminds herself again, but the tiny voice inside of her isn’t done speaking. _It should be._

She watches everything else fall apart with those words echoing in her head all the while:

Aaron rejects Cady. 

_Life isn’t fair, but it should be._

Regina finds out the truth about the Kälteen bars. 

_Life isn’t fair, but it should be._

She accidentally exposes Gretchen in one of her most embarrassing moments. 

_Life isn’t fair, but it should be._

Regina gets hit by the bus. 

_Life isn’t fair, but it should be._

Cady takes the fall for the book, finally able to be fearless for just one second. Karen knows what it is to try to be brave when it just feels impossible. She admires her for what she did. 

She tells Cady she’ll still be her friend and means it. 

_Maybe she can make it a little more fair for just one person._

***

Perhaps we were a bit wrong in saying that this is not a story of redemption, of forgiveness. 

Perhaps standing by was Karen’s mistake.

From the way senior year starts with apologies, she seems to think so. 

Karen is one of the first to visit Regina in the hospital, dragging Gretchen along with her with some chocolates and flowers. The girl she once knew-- the one from freshman year-- is still in there, she tells her best friend, and now, maybe there’s a chance to see her again. 

The three girls stew in awkward silence for a moment before they all apologize at once, cry together, and promise to communicate and treat each other well from now on. 

They talk for hours, discussing what they missed in trying to rule their tiny world. 

Karen makes her two best friends laugh, real and genuine, and she thinks maybe they’re going to be okay.

***

Karen’s first foray into open communication comes when she’s sat in the car with Gretchen one day. She doesn’t know why it’s just them, but Gretchen is talking animatedly to her; she thinks it’s about college, or maybe it’s about her internship, but the brunette starts to get nervous about getting in, about being good enough, and the only thing that Karen can think to do is kiss her. 

Gretchen gasps quietly and pulls away, looking at her in shock. 

“I’m sorry--” Karen starts, but before she can spill more words out of her mouth, Gretchen is reaching across the center console and kissing her back. 

She smiles into it; for years, she’s had a crush that she never thought would come to pass. She’s always wondered what it would be like to kiss her best friend, and now that it’s happened, she can’t stop. 

Gretchen presses her tongue into the kiss, shoves the blonde back against the passenger seat to kiss her harder, and, for the first time, Karen thinks that life is just a little bit more fair than she thought. 

***

Her GPA is too low to go to college. 

Karen doesn’t care too much about it, and her dad doesn’t seem too bothered. Gretchen goes to Northwestern, and the commute isn’t terrible, so they’re both happy. 

_Maybe life is just a little more fair than she thought._

She stays in Northshore, working a few retail jobs before she finds a place at the town’s local coffeeshop. Everybody loves her, loves how she remembers their coffee order, loves how she implements student discounts, loves how she’ll say _on the house_ , when she notices a customer is having a bad day. 

Karen rises in the ranks rather quickly, becoming general manager of the day shift in record time. She’s beloved in town, and yet, some still only see her as Delilah’s daughter, the one who went dumb, one of Regina George’s cronies. 

They still only see her as beautiful. 

And the thing is, the sad truth in this world is that sometimes being pretty is enough.

Karen knows this better than anybody, and she’s been criticized for it plenty. Guys at the counter will hit on her, tell her she’s stupid for not saying yes, and her mind will run quicker than she’s ever let anybody-- besides Gretchen-- know it could:

_Just because we don’t fit into your box doesn’t mean that we aren’t important. You take us as outcasts because we don’t take your APs, aren’t involved in anything at school. You disregard the pretty ones because you think that’s all we are._

_We are not your outcasts. We are not alone. We are not the ones nobody wanted. We’re just the kids that were cursed with knowing the truth about the world before it could learn the truth about us._

_That we are not breakable. That we are not disposable. That we are not the extras to someone else’s story._

_We just know what it is to cope. We just know what it is to lose. We just know what it is to hold our heart in a fist so tight that it’s screaming and bleeding all over the carpet. We just know what it is for nobody to help clean up that mess. We just know what it is for them to stare and stare, to tap on our shoulder and tell us it’s going to be alright when we know in our hearts that nothing will be alright ever again._

_So do not tell me I am just pretty. Do not call me names. Do not tell me I am unworthy._

She doesn’t say any of that. 

Instead, she squares her shoulders like Bridget taught her, the way she knows Regina still does when taking an interview, and looks the man dead in the eye. 

“I know who I am. I know what I want,” she’ll say clearly, holding out her hand for his credit card that undoubtedly is paid for by his father. “Do you?” 

He’ll stumble away with his coffee in hand without an answer, suddenly scared of the pretty blonde who he thought was dumb, she’ll wiggle her fingers goodbye at him, ask one of her interns to do the math on their sales for the day, go home and kiss her girlfriend. 

Weeks later, she’ll read an article by her best friend with a name she recognizes from the credit card she inserted into the cash register all those weeks ago. She’ll pet her cat; she’ll smile, make dinner, and wait to drift off to sleep and dream of her mother. 

“I love you,” Gretchen will murmur, snuggling closer in a half-slumber, and Karen will say it back forty two and a third times until she can’t keep her eyes open any longer. 

_Maybe life is just a little more fair than she thought._

**Author's Note:**

> soo, what did you think? if you enjoyed, please consider leaving me a comment with a line you liked or something else you thought i did right and a kudo, it helps motivate me and makes me smile. 
> 
> as always, i'm @ifthebookdoesntsell on tumblr. my askbox is always open for prompts, yelling, or whatever is on your mind. 
> 
> be safe.


End file.
